Umeå universitets logga

This thesis examines the complex problems concerning woman's "hidden labor" in the home and woman's role as "crypto-servant". These expressions illustrate housework as a production alloted no economic value. They also illustrate woman's acceptance of the responsibility of that labor and - more or less unconsciously - a subordinate role,a social position without societal influence.

The theoretical points of departure take economical as well as social factors into consideration. The principles of Scientific (Home) Management, Home Economic theories and theories of gender division of labor are presented, and various combinations of principles of rationality - economical/technical,social - and concepts of gender are discussed.

Housework - the daily labor with food,cleaning and wash - has changed drastically during the last hundred years. The bourgeois culture has influenced its values and modern industrial society has formed its conditions. The phases in this change are outlined and describe woman's work, from the demanding household production of the late 19:th century, to the elaborate home-making and the professional housewife of the early 20:th century, and the rational and scientific housework of the modern industrial society . The description ends with an empirical study of the conditions of housework and housewifes of today.

Women as relatively economically independent individuals are a recent phenomenon. As yet we can see no tangible changes in the gender division of labor. Women still remains with one foot in the household work and this prevents their participation on equal terms in the labor market. This is creating a conflict between the demands of production and the demands of reproduction, a conflict previously shouldered by women alone but now spreading outward, in the home and in the society, as a result of ongoing economic changes.

The analysis of values and conditions is based upon a study of relevant literature, parliament protocols,public investigations and official statistics. The conditions of housewifes of today have been studied through surveys and interviews in northern Swedish households from 1976 to 1981.